[andybak]

Then they are wrong.

I actually find this a common issue with a presumed sales pipeline I encounter.

They think:

1. He finds us. 2. He's interested and signs up for a trial 3. We hopefully convert before the trial is over

What actually tends to happen

1. I find something that looks interesting 2. I sign up 3. Real work intervenes 4. Several months later I have some time to look again but my trial has expired.

To be fair most companies respond to a quick email but they could be proactive and do the following:

1. If no activity is detected after the first day pause the trial 2. Some time later send an email saying "We've paused your trial. Please choose either: 1. to reactivate it, 2. be reminded in another x weeks or 3. never hear from us again.

[andybak]

(this would be more readable if Markdown was less idiotic)

[azernik]

The problem isn't that Markdown is idiotic; the problem is that Hacker News doesn't use Markdown at all.

GitHub and Reddit have conditioned us to think that any halfway decent discussion system must use it :-P